WINOL Critical Reflection - Year 2, Semester 1

WINOL (www.winol.co.uk) has gone through a vast transformation this term, the website to begin with was very up and down - it took some time to get it off the ground but now, I believe it's fair to say that the site is now flying high and will not stop soaring. The site has been changed to a broadsheet newspaper format, which was received as more appropriate for our news. The decision to change the site to Wordpress instead of Joomla is also a noticeable difference in the site, Wordpress does limit flexibility with what we can actually do and post to the site in terms of format, but it seems to be highly, if not more, fit for the purpose of WINOL. The massive overhaul of the website has been a fantastic move for the site and the results speak for themselves - the Alexa traffic rank now places the WINOL website currently 10,424 in the UK and 477,045 worldwide.

My role in WINOL this term has been the Entertainments Reporter and occasional presenter. I believe that this term I've done a good job, but, especially to begin with, there was and probably still is room for improvement. Overall, I feel that my contribution to WINOL has been of a good standard, every week bar 2 I have delivered a VT, which has then either been used as an OOV, been scrapped or used as a full package in the bulletin. My role as entertainments reporter has taught me that I need to be proactive; organisation is the key - insofar as if there is an event a few months away, depending on the event, I would need to get in touch with the event managers in advance, to ask for permission if necessary and to set up what I want to do with the event and how I want to report on it.

Along with going out and getting a story, I have presented the WINOL bulletin once this semester and I thoroughly enjoyed myself while doing it. I know that it wasn't the best but I had gone into this ordeal with no previous training, for example, voice coaching and I felt like I had been thrown in the deep end, especially considering that I only had about 15 - 20 minutes or rehearsal to get used to the setting of the whole thing, it really was a sink or swim moment, and I feel that I managed to stay afloat because I don't think that there was anything majorly wrong with it. That being said, I was picked up on my voice, I needed to change my tone according to the story, for example while reading out a link for a court report, I sounded strangely cheerful, contrasted to when I read the link out for the baby giraffe story where I sounded monotonous and uninterested. Given the circumstances, I feel that I did well presenting and I would very much like a chance to try again and do myself justice, as I know I can do better.

Over the course of this semester, I have produced 7 VT's, of these 7, 4 have been placed into the bulletin, usually filling the spot of "and finally” When I first started however, I was not very organised with my contacts and I failed to get in touch with a few people who would have been key to my packages being that much better and worthy of being in the bulletin, put simply, I was not proactive enough and thought that I could send an E-mail and maybe make a call, then just turn up on my own volition. With that in mind I feel that after I stopped only sending E-mails to people and actually started ringing and planning through my stories a good week or so in advance is when I got my real results.

The first ever story I produced for WINOL was the story of a willow installation being added to the Winchester Discovery Centre this package was not used for the bulletin and this is because I feel that I failed to hit the right angle with this story, instead of it being just about this woman, Laura Ellen Bacon, using twigs of willow to create works of art, I could have potentially taken the focus away from that and had a bit of fun with it, instead of taking it so seriously. This was my first story, it was not a good one in my eyes and I could have done a lot better, but that being said, I managed to produce a package for the first WINOL, regardless of if it was used.

The second story I did was the Chronicles of Light event at Winchester Cathedral, this was also not featured in the bulletin, this is because of many reasons, this package was somewhat doomed from the start because I couldn't get my hands on any footage of the event actually happening, for example I was not allowed to film the event happening in Winchester Cathedral, because of copy right issues. This means that my package turned into an interview with the event manager of Winchester Cathedral, Simon Barwood, which just told people that the event was happening. If I had been more proactive I could have done something more with it, but then again everything looks better in retrospect.

My third story was covering an event held by Naomi House Hospice they hosted a James Bond charity event in the shop to raise money for the charity, this was one of my better packages but it didn't get used in the bulletin or as an oov, this is because, I think anyway, that the other 'and finally' package that we had was just better in every way and far more engaging. I worked very hard on that package and was disheartened when it didn't get put into the bulletin or used as an oov, but as i said, the alternative story was better in my opinion, just because of content and the level of interest.

This is where I hit my stride, the story I covered was about pub owner, Colin Flitter, located in the New Forest, has converted a double decker bus into a mobile pub. This story was my debut into the bulletin as a full package. I thought that this went very well overall and the guest editor that week, Graham Bell, told me that it was a great story and just the kind of thing you want to see as an 'and finally' because it's just a brilliant, fun and light hearted story to end on. However, the package really needed to be more than just one long interview with Colin, and more me explaining the whole idea, with shots of the bus and then cut to an interview with him just for a fun little snippet just to make it a great light hearted story. The other thing I was picked up on was that during my sign off I took a sip of beer, which would make me appear highly unprofessional.

The next story of mine to go into the bulletin was the graduation ceremony at Winchester Cathedral. This could have been a lot better than it was, I should have gotten vox pops of the people there, even the graduates parents talking about how happy they are would have been good, but while I was there i only managed to get one interview and no vox pops - people just were not willing to talk to me or to be filmed which really impeded the progression of my story and made it less than what it could have been. The shots i took needed to have been better, for example I didn't get any natural sound of cheering or anything to that effect, the best i managed was to capture the all important hat throw, but that was not enough to save the package. It was used, but I feel that I should have done a lot better with this. This is where I had massive issues with my voice over, it sounded like I was under water at the least, it just sounded bad no matter what I did and I must have re-recorded it about 6 times to try and get it, but to no avail.

I covered the Winchester Christmas lights for my story and I had very good natural sound with this in the beginning, with the countdown and cheering. I was told that it was well scripted and I took on the advice of my peers to be more enthusiastic and assertive that it is now officially Christmas in my voice over, it really raised the tone of the news bulletin because it was all doom and gloom. However, the shots did need to be better, they were all very dark and I didn't get enough footage to match all the celebration I was talking about in my voice over, if I'm talking about people loving the event, I need to show it happening.

The Winchester Christmas Market was my final package for WINOL this semester and I thought that it was a very good package. The guest editor, Geoff Hill, the Channel 5 news editor, said that the camera work was fantastic because it was very dark and in the package the lighting was perfect, the focus was dead on and the camera work was just altogether brilliant considering it was pitch black when it was filmed, along with this, he said that it was also well scripted. However, this certain package was just screaming out for vox pops, I've said in the package that everyone was having a great time but I should have reinforced this with the stall owners or just people attending to voice this.

The issues that I have encountered during my filming have been: wind noise, not enough shots of the area or not enough relevant shots, for example I found that when it came to editing, especially in my first few packages, that I really did not have enough footage of people 'doing things' which made it difficult to get a good, solid VT out of it. Moreover, other issues include, filming in the dark (Christmas Lights and Christmas Market) I feel that the most trouble I've had through all of my VT's is my voice over. My voice overs have tended to sound dreadful, every time I tried to make them better they either sounded the same or they just deteriorated - I tried recording them with the gun microphone, the radio microphone, the lip microphone but nothing sounded good, the only time my audio has been good is when I've been out on location for my story. Perhaps in the future to remedy this I should plan and draft my script ready for going out and filming, just to avoid the terrible audio issues when it comes to voice overs I always seem to have throughout my video packages.

Overall, I have enjoyed my time on WINOL this semester and I am looking forward to next semester after Christmas and I plan on being far more efficient at news reporting and I will take all of this into great consideration to constantly strive to better myself.